Steve King: Trump's use of 9/11 to defend New York was 'below the belt'

Iowa Rep. Steve King, a top member of Ted Cruz’s leadership team, said that Thursday night's exchange about "New York values" seems to have helped Donald Trump.

“I didn’t think he went too far until I saw Donald Trump’s reaction," King said of Cruz, speaking on CNN's "New Day" on Friday morning.

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"Then I thought it would have been better on the part of Ted Cruz not to have had that exchange,” said King, who co-chairs the Cruz campaign nationally and in Iowa and has been touring around the state with his Texan colleague.

“I thought it was one of the times when you saw Donald Trump actually show you more of his heart than we’ve seen on the campaign trail. He meant what he said. You could tell that he was reliving some of the pain of Sept. 11 2001," he added.

King noted that Cruz did not bring up the terrorist attacks when he mentioned New York, but said that Trump's rejoinder was a smart play, even if it was “below the belt.”

“Some of those punches were below the belt when he brought up Sept. 11 because there’s no way to defend yourself from that," King remarked. "That wasn’t the topic, but he did it so deftly."

The riveting exchange over Cruz's repeated swipes at Trump's "New York values" came in response to a moderator's request to elaborate on what he meant by the comment.

“Everyone understands the values in New York City are socially liberal, pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage and focus around money and the media,” Cruz responded.

“Let me put this a different way,” Cruz went on. “Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan.”

Trump then rounded on Cruz by invoking New York's response to the 9/11 attacks.

“No place on Earth could have handled that more beautifully, more humanely than New York,” Trump said. “That was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”